The GG nominees and winners pick their favourite Canadian books

The Citizen has asked nominees and winners of the Governor General’s literary awards to recommend Canadian books that readers might consider as a Christmas present to family, friends or themselves. And they have responded with lots of good suggestions.

Jon Arno Lawson’s Pick: The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King (Anchor Canada).

“It changed the way I think more than any other book I’ve read in a long time. King’s style, the hard information and the humour presented as one — the hard questions he makes you ask about yourself in the present moment — they’ve changed the way I think, the things I say and the way I act. I would say this is one of the most important books out there. I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

“How much more Canadian can you get. As they say in the movie biz, this is champagne casting. I look to Matt James’ illustrations when my art gets too stiff and boring. He comes up with answers and approaches to illustrations that no one would ever have thought of and that’s what makes him so inimitable. When my family gets together we eat, drink and sing. At some point during the night, there is a deafening round of Northwest Passage with my father belting out the verses. It’s beautiful.”

Kate Cayley

Nominated for English fiction for How You Were Born (Pedlar Press).

Her pick: The Search for Heinrich Schlögel, by Martha Baillie (Pedlar Press).

“I can’t say too much about the plot without giving away the best parts. A German man comes to Canada, goes North and vanishes in a crevice of time. This is a book about time, history, memory, language — spare, beautiful, haunting. It got into my dreams.”

James Long

Nominated with Marcus Youssef for the play Winners and Losers (Talonbooks).

His pick: The End of Absence by Michael Harris (HarperCollins).

“Great non-fiction exploring our society’s troubling dependency on the Internet and its various devices. I enjoyed the book this summer while enjoying an almost off the grid family vacation on one of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. Growing up as a country boy, I cherish those memories of having ‘nothing to do’ and filling it quickly with play or daydreams. Good news is they can still do it when the screens are taken away, as mine and their cousins quickly proved over that week on the island. Unfortunately I still needed the Internet to remember how to make a mojito.”

Helen Humphreys

Nominated for English fiction for The Evening Chorus (HarperCollins).

Her pick: Rachel Cusk’s The Outline (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

“The writing was fresh and unselfconscious, which in a book of auto-fiction is a hard act to master. Cusk’s skills as a novelist were showcased in The Outline, where a seemingly casual series of events were crafted into a sharp and poignant tale of many things, including the act of writing itself.”

M. Travis Lane

Nominated for her collection of poetry, Crossover (Cormorant Books).

Her pick: The Essential Robert Gibbs, selected by Brian Bartlett (Porcupine Quill).

“Robert Gibbs’s poetry touches the heart and provokes the imagination. He writes intimately of the natural world and of our inner dream worlds in a manner at once colloquial and melodic, witty, sophisticated, tender. His imagery is sensual, vivid, surprising, almost extravagant — sometimes joking — but with this he retains the typically Maritime penchant for understatement and modesty. Brian Bartlett’s selection of some of Gibbs’s best poetry for Porcupine Quill’s Essential series should bring wider attention to the extraordinary talent of one of Canada’s best poets.”

Mark Winston

Won the non-fiction award for Bee-Time: Lessons from the Hive (Harvard University Press).

His pick: Connie Gault’s A Beauty (Emblem Editions).

“(It) is quintessential prairie, weaving lyrical passages about the land with the rich array of quirky, tough-minded characters who populate this beautiful but often harsh Canadian landscape. Gault’s stark descriptions of the dust bowl prairie era reflect abandoned small towns, collapsing farmhouses, interminable vistas of stunted crops and unending waves of attacking grasshoppers. But on this unforgiving land are its human inhabitants, struggling to survive by supporting each other and finding love however they can. A Beauty reminds us of how very much we depend on each other and the land from which we harvest.”

Clifford Jackman

Nominated for English fiction for The Winter Family (Random House Canada).

His pick: Boo by Neil Smith (Knopf Canada).

“One moment, nerdy Oliver “Boo” Dalrymple is peering into his locker, trying to find the courage to face another day. The next he is in a afterlife for 13-year-old Americans in a housing project. There he is joined by Johnny Henzel, a troubled and sometimes angry classmate. Boo is drawn to Johnny, who is wounded and brave, but eventually becomes suspicious about how they died so closely together. This mystery, along with the boys’ quest to find a way back to earth, is what drives this beautiful, funny, and touching novel.”

Beth Graham

Nominated for her play The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble (Playwrights Canada Press).

Her pick: Saskatchewan playwright Daniel MacDonald’s A History of Breathing (Playwrights Canada Press).

“This post-apocalyptic tale is set on a vast eel-infested ocean that was once earth. The characters are unique and recognizable. The story, that focuses on the relationship of a father and his daughter, is epic and packs an emotional punch. It is a wonderful read that touches on war, religion, family and hope regained.”

Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli

Nominated for translation.

Their pick: The book they translated, Stolen Sisters — The Story of Two Missing Girls, Their Families and How Canada Has Failed Indigenous Women (HarperCollins).

“In Stolen Sisters, readers receive from author Emmanuelle Walter the gift of a moving tribute to two young girls, Maisy Odjick and Shannon Alexander, (who are from Maniwaki about 100 km north of Ottawa) and an exposé of the shocking historical and present-day conditions that have led to the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Incorporating the voices of the girls’ family and friends and featuring other ground-breaking writing by Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors, Walter manages to reveal the full measure of Canada’s loss while throwing into stark relief the need to recast Canadian society.”

Susin Nielsen

Nominated for her children’s book We Are All Molecules (Tundra Books).

Her pick: The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway (Vintage Canada).

“It is a title I still recommend to family and friends. Set in a city ravaged by war, with characters doing their best to survive and maintain their humanity — it feels timely all over again. There’s not a stray word in this book … It’s not all doom and gloom, either; it’s a hopeful novel, about the redemptive powers of creativity. On a completely different note, Seven Dead Pirates by Linda Bailey is the funniest, warmest, most delightful middle-grade novel I read this year.”

Guy Vanderhaeghe

Won English fiction for his collection Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (McClelland & Stewart).

His pick: A Life with Words by Richard B. Wright (Simon and Schuster).

“I would like to suggest a book that may escape many people’s notice. Wright is probably best known for his celebrated novel Clara Callan, but this memoir of how a working class boy turned himself into one of Canada’s finest writers offers many delights, finely shaded, sharply-etched memories of small-town Ontario, anecdotes of his early days working in Toronto publishing, and recollections of his struggle to make his way as a writer. A book of quiet, poignant loveliness.”

Tom Arthur Davis

Nominated with Tara Grammy for the play Mahmoud (Playwrights Canada Press).

“(She) is one of the most daring playwrights working in Canada today. Look no further than her play Salome’s Clothes (published by Playwrights Canada Press as a part of the Performing Back: Post-Colonial Canadian Plays anthology). In it she interweaves potent political allegory with volatile family drama, all written with such nuanced subtlety that it would have made Chekhov jealous. It is a play about the elephants in the room that we all choose to collectively ignore to maintain our standards of living, even if these elephants are trampling on our ‎resources, or even on our families.”

David Halton

Nominated for his biography of his father Matthew Halton called Dispatches from the Front: The Life of Matthew Halton, Canada’s Voice At War (McClelland & Stewart).

His pick: Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History by Andrew Cohen (Signal).

“If you think there is little new to be written about John F. Kennedy, Two Days in June will surprise you. Cohen provides fresh insights and new research into two of the defining issues of Kennedy’s presidency, nuclear disarmament and civil rights. The book focusses on 48 hours in which Kennedy delivers two of his most historic speeches while dealing with political crises and even finding time for a social escapade outside the White House. Politics are deftly interwoven with fascinating personal detail about JFK.”

“Through strong, sparse dialogue and vivid details, Wagamese masterfully portrays the conflicted relationship between 16-year-old Franklin and his estranged father, Eldon. With nothing between them but duty and regret, both father and son navigate the rugged terrain of their shared story in search of the courage and compassion each one needs for redemption. Walk with them — it’s a journey you won’t forget.”

Emil Sher

Nominated for his children’s book Young Man with Camera (Scholastic Canada).

His pick: Something from Nothing by Phoebe Gilman (Scholastic Canada).

“In the seasoned hands of Joseph’s grandfather, a beloved but tattered blanket is snip-snip-snipped and sewn into a wonderful jacket that becomes a wonderful vest that, before long, becomes a tie that an older Joseph wears to his grandparents’ house every Friday night. And so it goes in Something from Nothing, a timeless picture book by the late Phoebe Gilman — based on a Jewish folktale — until what was once a blanket is no more than a button. When the button is lost, Joseph discovers an enduring truth: stories can surface in the most unlikely ways, waiting to be unspooled.”

“Do you follow bull riding? I don’t either. But I found Wagamese’s rodeo novel Dream Wheels on a shelf in Edmonton’s Druid pub and was hooked. Wagamese writes the opening scene of a young cowboy in the chute from the perspective of the bull. Gutsy. It could have been corny but it’s brilliant. So I stole the book. Though the plot teeters on the edge of melodrama, the descriptions of B.C. ranchland are lyrical, and you come away with an understanding of why someone would want to climb on a 1,000-pound bull. I still owe the pub.”

David Scott Hamilton

Nominated for his translation of Captive by Claudine Dumont (House of Anansi).

“Blais’ prose is renowned for its rich urban landscapes and for its narrative complexity, which many readers find daunting. This novel is no exception. It has been described as a swirling fresco of characters, including a cast of drag queens and a 15-year-old girl named Mai. The novel was translated into English by Nigel Spencer, for which he won the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-English Translation in 2012. As a translator myself, I stand in awe of Spencer’s masterful rendering of such a difficult text which he succeeds in making sing with such force.”

“It is written by a seasoned journalist at the top of his game. It is also an important book for Canadians who care about the health of our democracy. As Bourrie scrupulously documents, the people’s right to know is essential if citizens are to make informed political decisions in a troubled world. The Harper government attacked scientists, environmentalists, judges, journalists — anyone who brought an independent voice and facts at variance with the government’s narrative, to the critical debates of our time. Bourrie’s comfortably crafted work, a true cautionary tale of what can happen in a lazy democracy, reminds all of us how important it is to remain vigilant.”

Mélanie Watt

Nominated for the illustrated children’s book Bug in a Vacuum (Tundra Books).

Her pick: Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Random House).

“It’s easy to tell by my picture books that I love animals so the premise was interesting to me from the very start. Not only is it beautifully written and a charming story about perseverance and survival, it’s also filled with metaphors about human behaviour. It’s a lesson on life’s struggles and a window into the psyche of beast vs man and how surprisingly similar these beings can be.”

“‘Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth … to give himself up to a particular landscape … to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it’.” So said Pulitzer Prize winning Kiowa novelist N. Scott Momaday, and this is exactly what Kingston writer Helen Humphreys has done in The River. In elegant prose, Humphreys manages to hold the life of a river, observe and imagine it, so that these remarkable stories, and photographs, are no less than a meditation on how to live – and not live – with nature.”

Rhonda Mullins

Won for her translation of Twenty-One Cardinals by Jocelyne Saucier (Coach House Books).

Her pick:Pillow byAndrew Battershill (Coach House Books).

“It captures the novel’s title character with the deftness of a butterfly collector capturing his prey in a net. A retired boxer and animal lover who has taken one too many hits to the head, Pillow, the man, is vivid, a gentle being who is out of options and finds himself in a life of crime. In fact he’s so vivid you’ll start to feel as though you’ve seen him somewhere around the neighbourhood. The dialogue lands true, the humour is offbeat and the writing has pace and insight.”

Andy Jones

Nominated with Daka Erdelji for the illustrated children’s book, Jack the King of Ashes (Running the Goat Books & Broadsides).

His pick: Marine Life by Linda Svendsen (Harper Collins).

“I’m so glad that Linda Svendsen makes me laugh during Marine Life so that I can rest from the shocks and thrills that I experience after I walk through the front door of the very Canadian lives of Adele Nordstrom and her family; and I never doubt that I am really there — for how else could I meet such illogical, fiery, heart breaking and ordinary humans. This is a Canadian jewel. My all time favourite.”

Robyn Sarah

Won for her poetry collection My Shoes Are Hurting Me (Biblioasis).

Her pick: The Exiles’ Gallery by Elise Partridge (House of Anansi).

“The Exiles’ Gallery would have been in the running for this year’s GG if the poet had lived to see it off the press last spring. It is the last of three luminous collections that Partridge wrote during a 12-year reprieve from cancer. The first two were Fielder’s Choice(2002) and Chameleon Hours(2008). It shares with them a lively intelligence, a compassionate spirit, and an exactness of craft. A Canadian by choice who gave much to our literary community, this well-loved Vancouver poet wished fervently that her poems would survive her. I believe and hope that they will.”

David Yee

Won for his play, carried away on the crest of a wave (Playwrights Canada Press).

His pick: Fronteras Americanas by Guillermo Verdecchia (Talonbooks).

“This is the book that made me want to be a writer. It’s a theatre piece, a one man show about the negotiation of our cultural ‘borders’ and trying to find a place to call home. Fronteras Americanas is a virtuosic work from one of Canada’s most exceptional writers. Verdecchia writes with pure fire, his considerable intelligence on display alongside a provocatively satirical sense of humour and a huge, beating heart. For anyone who has ever tried to fit in … anywhere.”

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